A Brief History of the Thomas, West Virginia Area

By Joseph W. Dumire

Tucker County Historical Society

IN THE BEGINNING:

  Close your eyes. Imagine the early beginnings of the area surrounding Thomas. The year was 1746. Thomas Lewis and Col. Peter Jefferson who was the father of Thomas Jefferson were commissioned by Thomas, 6th Lord Fairfax to survey the lands of his Northern Neck Proprietary that Lord Fairfax had inherited from his father the 5th Lord Fairfax being 5/6 of the original 5,282,000 acres granted by King Charles II on September 18, 1649, to Fairfax’s father the 5th Lord Fairfax. The land included the headspring of the North Branch of the Potomac River and was marked by the Fairfax Stone (dtd. 1746, replaced 1910, replaced 1957) which is believed to have been set by a youthful George Washington and currently marks the meeting place of Preston, Grant and Tucker Counties in West Virginia as well as Garrett County, Maryland. This survey succeeded the original survey of 1736. At this time in history the area was still part of the State of Virginia.

  This region of land was a vast wilderness covered with vast expanses of virgin forest consisting of red spruce, beech, walnut, ash, poplar, sugar maple, cherry, red and white oak, and chestnut. The laurel and rhododendron were so thick and intertwined it was necessary to cut through them to make the way traversable. The lands were abundant with wildlife including deer, beaver, mink, turkey, black bear, elk and many other types and kinds of wildlife and fish. It was a land of unequaled beauty and savage grandeur.

ENTER U. S. SENATOR HENRY GASSAWAY DAVIS (b. 1823-d.1916):

  Henry Gassaway Davis was born in 1823 near Baltimore to a genteel family who had previously lived in London, England. However, the family had fallen on hard times and his father died young. So, Henry was relegated to leaving school early on with little education beyond the elementary grades to help support the family. In his twenties Henry became a brakeman on the B & O Railroad which became the early start of his success. From 1875 to 1905 he became one of the more prominent and significant secondary political and business leaders of the country during the industrial age of America. In 1904 at the age of eighty-one he was nominated for vice-president of the United States. 

  An astute businessman, Senator Davis acquired great wealth during the “Gilded Age.” He founded several towns and several banking institutions, built churches and schools, a children’s home and a fine hospital. In association with his son-in-law, Senator Stephen Benton Elkins, he helped found Davis & Elkins College which bears their names. Senator Davis associated with other rich and famous industrialists of the period including John D. Rockefeller, Andrew Carnegie, Cornelius Vanderbilt and Henry Clay Frick. While being philanthropists, these men gave generously to community needs, but at the same time they treated their employees harshly.

  Senator Davis acquired many thousands of acreages in West Virginia and Maryland during his career. He saw the wealth potential of the virgin forests and seams of coal. During the latter part of the 19th century the Senator began removing and selling the timber and coal reserves from his lands. Getting the products to market was an arduous and dangerous venture during the early years of his business ventures. So, the Senator decided he needed a more efficient means of getting his coal and timber products to market from this undeveloped region. 

THE HEYDAY OF SENATOR DAVIS’ EMPIRE:

  Senator Davis’ Davis Coal & Coke Co. was chartered on January 17, 1889, and his West Virginia Central & Pittsburg Railway was chartered in February 1881. These new charters were the result of the merger of Senator Davis’ various real estate and railway companies. The Buxton & Landstreet Company Store was chartered on August 7, 1889, as the retail arm of the Davis Coal & Coke Company. The original wood frame structure burned down and was replaced by the current brick structure in 1900. The Davis Coal & Coke Administration Building was also constructed in 1900 for the oversight of the real estate, coal, coke and timber operations. The main office locally for the railway operated out of the city of Elkins, West Virginia.

  The first leg of the West Virginia Central & Pittsburg Railway stretched from Piedmont, WV to Elk Garden, WV and opened on November 2, 1881. The railroad was completed to Thomas, WV in August 1884, to Parsons in 1888 and Elkins November 1889, and then on to Huttonsville, WV. Eventually the railroad connected with the B & O Railroad at Cumberland, MD. There were excellent connections to the North, East and West. During the heyday of Senator Davis’ industrial empire his railroad carried 245,838 tons of lumber in 1899 alone which is equal to 125,000,000 board feet. Holdings of the railroad included the Blackwater Hotel at Davis. Thomas became the great industrial center of the West Virginia Central & Pittsburg Railway, and including the suburbs had a population of 5,000 people. 

  Davis Coal & Coke Company controlled coal, timber, and coke operations as well as owning a hotel in Davis, and electric power plant in Thomas which also supplied the electricity to the city of Thomas. There were nine coal mines in Thomas alone and one-thousand coke ovens. At one time the sky over Coketon was so brilliantly lighted with the glow from the coke ovens that it was comparable to the aurora borealis, and the glow could be seen for miles around. The first mine opened in 1883 and coal was waiting to be shipped by the time the railroad arrived in 1884. Company offices were in New York City, Chicago, Philadelphia, Baltimore, Boston, Wilmington, Delaware, Trenton, New Jersey, Washington, D.C., Cumberland, Maryland and Thomas, WV. Company business employed a President, Vice-President, General Manager, General Sales Agent, General Superintendent, nine local superintendents, and over one-hundred clerks, foremen and other office employees. Were it not for Senator Davis along with his Davis Coal & Coke Co. and the West Virginia Central & Pittsburg Railway the local communities would not exist. No single industry ever did so much for Thomas, Coketon and Douglas as the Davis Coal & Coke Co. True, this company was contingent upon the railway company; But, at the same time, the railway company was contingent on the Davis Coal & Coke Co. The Davis Coal & Coke Co. was one of the largest and best-known coal companies in the world. 

Immigrants of sixteen different nationalities and race flocked to Thomas and Davis to mine the coal, cut the timber and work the coke ovens. There were people from Lithuania, Italy, Austria, Ireland, Poland, Slovenia, Russia and other countries. African American workers were brought in as strike breakers when Company employees became dissatisfied with working conditions, poor pay and being forced to buy goods at the Company store. Thomas became a city with a cosmopolitan flair. In 1906 Davis Coal & Coke owned 100,000 acres of coal land that produced 8,000 tons per day with Thomas alone producing half of that amount. About thirteen hundred men were employed and the Company payroll was about $75,000 per month. During the golden age of the Company Davis Coal & Coke employed nearly one-thousand people in Tucker County with a payroll approximating $100,000. In 1903 a Polish gentleman by the name of Wladyslaw Dackiewicz came to Thomas as interpreter for the Davis Coal & Coke Company. He spoke six or eight languages. He lived in Thomas. 

  The retail arm of the Davis Coal and Coke Company was the Davis Coal & Coke Company Store. It sold everything needed by the miners and their families including food, clothing, furniture, etc. The Company paid the miners in scrip which meant the miners had no choice but to buy everything from the Company. In addition to anything charged on credit at the Company store, things such as water, lights, UMW dues, rent for a Company house or doctor bills to the Company doctor or medical bills at the Company hospital in Elkins were taken out of the miners’ wages. So, if the miners were not careful, they could end up not receiving any wages because they were in the hole for what was owed back to the company as an account receivable. Thus, the words in an old song “I owe my soul to the company store.” It was a way of keeping the miners down and under the complete control of the Company. Each of the towns where the Company had a coal mine there was a branch of the company store including Pierce, Benbush, and Kempton, Maryland. The store at Thomas was the main or central store and actually sat at the beginning of the Company town of Coketon. Each even included a post office. Wherever the Company opened a mine and started a town they opened a store.

END OF AN ERA:

  Around the 1920’s the timber industry had pretty much denuded the area around Thomas of any trees. And, by 1950 the coal mines in the local area were worked out and began to close. As each of the mines closed and the miners were laid off, they began to leave for cities such as Cleveland, Pittsburgh and Detroit for other employment opportunities

  In 1902 the railway, along with Davis Coal & Coke Co. was sold to the Fuller Syndicate led by George Gould. In 1905 they were merged into the Western Maryland Railway which classified the operation as a field office and in 1973 they became part of the Chessie System and then CSX Transportation in 1980.  In 1981 the last supervisor of the local operation passed away and was not replaced. The field office was down to one secretary and one engineer, and was managed out of the Huntington, WV office. It became a shadow of the former glory days. During 1985 CSX Transportation closed the field office and tore down properties it considered a liability including the coal lab next to the administration building, and the depot along with numerous sheds and other structures along the railroad grade. An era of local history had sadly come to an end. Towns like Thomas, Davis, Coketon, Douglas, Benbush and Pierce became ghosts of themselves. Today these communities rely on the tourist industry for survival, and it is providing a certain amount of resurgence.

BIBLIOGRAPHY:

Thomas Lewis Diary – September 10, 1746

David Hunter Strother, One of the Best Draughtsmen the County Possesses – John A. Cuthbert & Jessie Poesch – West Virginia University Press – 1997

Henry Gassaway Davis, An Old-Fashioned Biography – by Thomas Richard Ross 1994 – McClain Printing Co.

West Virginia Central & Pittsburg Railway – prepared by Sam Griffin 1899 – The Independent Job Room

Thomas, West Virginia 1906 – by T. Nutter – McClain Printing Co.

History of Tucker County, West Virginia – by Homer Floyd Fansler 1962 – McClain Printing Co.

This article appeared in the April 2022 edition of the Tucker County Historical Society quarterly newsletter. The TCHS is a tax-exempt non-profit organization under section 501(c)(3) of the Internal Revenue Code. It meets monthly in Parsons with membership open to anyone for annual dues of $10 mailed to PO Box 13, Hambleton, WV 26269.